A Master’s Handwork

Animator David Hand may not be a household name, but that’s certainly not the case for some of the classic characters he helped bring to life: Mickey Mouse, Snow White, Bambi--and Ginger Nutt.

Ginger who? This plucky squirrel was one of the residents of “Animaland,” a series of charming cartoons that Hand created in Britain in the 1940s after his legendary tenure at Disney. They were never released theatrically in the United States and were long considered lost. And Hand became one of animation’s forgotten pioneers.

Fifty years later comes a surprise happy ending. Nine of these exquisite and enchanting cartoons, relics of a bygone golden era of animation, were found in, of all places, Burbank, in a box of films fated for disposal. Restored to pristine condition, they will be released May 12 on the Just for Kids Home Video label ($19.95).

The long-lost cartoons were discovered by Ken Kramer, owner of the Clip Joint for Film, a stock footage library, as he played the film he had purchased for $50.

“We put them on the projector, and we sat there watching them with our mouths open, wondering, ‘Where did these come from?’ ” Kramer recalled. A phone call to film writer and historian Leonard Maltin confirmed that Kramer had inadvertently uncovered treasure.

Kramer later formed a partnership with Hand’s son, David Hale Hand, who owned the rights, to distribute the cartoons on video.

This revelatory collection reclaims Hand’s legacy and introduces him to a new generation. “He ranks high in the pantheon of the great Disney and animation directors of all time,” noted animation historian Jerry Beck. “I’m glad to see he’s finally getting recognition.”

Hand, who died in 1986 at age 86, joined Disney in 1930 as Walt Disney’s fourth animator. He had begun his career at the groundbreaking J.R. Bray Studio in New York, where he met Max Fleischer, for whom he later animated “Out of the Inkwell” cartoons. He had also animated “Andy Gump.”

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Hand rose rapidly through the ranks at Disney. He animated some of the fledgling studio’s most celebrated Mickey Mouse cartoons and Silly Symphonies, including “Flowers and Trees,” the first color cartoon, which earned Disney its first Academy Award; the Oscar-nominated “Who Killed Cock Robin?”; and “Mickey’s Polo Team.”

Walt Disney designated Hand to be supervising director on his first feature-length animated film, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Hand also directed “Bambi” and was the production supervisor for “Pinocchio,” “Dumbo” and “Fantasia.” His last project for Disney was the propaganda film “Victory Through Airpower.”

In 1944, Hand was recruited by Britain’s premier filmmaker, J. Arthur Rank, to develop a world-class animation facility, Gaumont-British Animations Studio, for which Hand created and supervised the “Animaland” cartoons as well as the “Musical Paintbox” series.

The major studios don’t make fully animated cartoons like “Animaland” anymore. The fact that these have not been seen in this country adds to their event status.

Ginger Nutt is the most frequently recurring character in such cartoons as “It’s a Lovely Day,” “Ginger Nutt’s Christmas Circus” and “Ginger Nutt’s Forest Dragon.”

Other cartoons range from the charming “The Australian Platypus” to the darkly comic “The Cuckoo” and “The Lion,” in which a humiliated king of the jungle puts the bite on a disparaging human observer.

In the depth of their design, the gentleness of their humor and their portrayal of animal movement, the cartoons recall classic Disney animation, particularly “Bambi.” Hand was honored by Britain’s royal family in 1950 for his contributions to British animation. A year later, he returned to the United States to pursue a career making industrial films.

And “Animaland”? The cartoons reportedly languished in the Rank film depository after Rank, who experienced difficulties breaking into the U.S. film market, closed his studio.

But the story didn’t end there. In 1996, a Santa Monica man phoned Kramer with six boxes of film for sale, mostly unwanted trailers from current movies. Kramer finally paid $50 to take them off the man’s hands. “You can watch me when I carry it to the Dumpster,” he joked.

That evening, a friend joined Kramer in investigating the boxes’ contents and discovered four reels of 35-millimeter Technicolor cartoons. “I thought they might be Warner Bros. or Disney,” Kramer said. ‘But my friend said, ‘Whatever they are, I’ve never seen them before.’ ”

Just how the cartoons got here remains a mystery. “We really don’t know,” David Hale Hand said. “There is speculation that they were shown at a film festival and never returned to England. I don’t know if it’s true, but it makes a nice story.”

In 1984, David Hand was honored with the animation industry’s prestigious Winsor McCay “Annie” for lifetime achievement. In 1994, he was posthumously given a “Legend of Disney” award, the studio’s highest honor.

With the release of “Animaland,” David Hale Hand, a Reseda resident who is writing his father’s biography, is “very pleased” that he will at last receive recognition outside animation circles.

“The cartoons are so special,” he said. “It’s a style of animation that has been long lost. And they show just what a dynamic pioneer my father was.”